Seán Hillery from Ennis in Co Clare wants to follow his father into dentistry. However, finding a place to study in Ireland was not possible due to the high number of points he needed after he completed his Leaving Cert in 2023.
He is now heading back to Valencia in Spain for this academic year, studying dentistry there. It has been an adjustment, from his preferred options to study in Ireland, either at University College Cork or Trinity College Dublin.
"It would have been great to be around more Irish students, around people that I'd know. When it comes to dentistry and dental college, there's a lot of interacting with patients through the clinics and now that I am studying in Spain, those people won't be speaking the language I speak, so I've got another language I need to learn to get through my qualifications."
He said it is a huge obstacle not learning through your primary language and he is concerned he may be at a disadvantage when he comes back to Ireland. "I'm going to have to do more study, more learning when I get back here on my own," he said.
His father, dental surgeon Dr Barry Hillery, studied himself at UCC and is also frustrated by the situation his son and other Irish students find themselves in.
"There has been a general lack of funding, certainly towards the dental schools for many years and to be fair I think to the universities, both UCC and Trinity, to try to compensate for that lack of funding, they've felt compelled to bring in these students who would pay much higher fees.
"It's very disappointing and frustrating to see how many places in the Irish dental schools are being kept specifically for overseas students to pay much higher fees, thus limiting the places available to Irish students and exacerbating the problem in terms of the lack of Irish dentists."
Siobhán Kelly from Co Monaghan opted to study dentistry at the University of Lodz in Poland and is now entering her fifth and final year there. She said that studying abroad was hard at first, but that it has also brought her a lot of benefits and skills which she hopes to use when she returns to work in Ireland next year.
She thought about studying abroad after meeting someone during a summer job, who was studying veterinary medicine in Warsaw. She said she wasn't happy with the Leaving Cert results she got in 2021, or with the offer of the course that she was given through the CAO, which was far from her first choice. It was just after Covid, and she saw the move abroad as a means to an end, to get what she wanted.
"Definitely studying abroad is tough, you're missing birthdays and anniversaries," she explained.
"It would be fantastic for future students that there would be more spaces so that they can do dentistry and they don't have to go abroad and their parents don't have to go through that financial burden as well."
However she said the cost of living where she is living is lower and she has also gained valuable experience working in the Polish health system.
"The sense of being a European is more prevalent. The long-term goal is that I will be able to work back in Ireland."
She has also learned to speak and interact with her patients through the Polish language.
"There is a large Polish community in Ireland and I'm hoping that maybe I can help some of them."
Her advice to any current students wanting to study dentistry is to definitely try studying abroad. "It is daunting and it is different. But I think the end result, achieving your dream is definitely worth it."
Read more: Dentists call for cap on international dentistry students
The Irish Dental Association said over 1,000 students are now looking for around 100 available college places in Ireland this year. Despite having attained the top Leaving Cert marks necessary, some will lose out to random selection.
Last month, the the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland (RCSI) University of Medicine and Health Sciences opened a purpose-built €12m Dental Education Centre in Sandyford which it says will be a significant step towards addressing the national shortage of dentists.
The RCSI points out that Ireland currently trains fewer dentists per capita than most OECD countries and that over 45% of newly registered dentists with the Dental Council are trained overseas.
The new course has funding to provide 20 new dentistry places per annum for Irish and EEA students from the Higher Education Authority. Ten of those places will go to international students.
In a statement to RTÉ News, the Department of Further and Higher Education said its officials had been actively engaging on the issue of dentistry training provision, with a particular emphasis on increasing the number of places available to Irish and EU students.
It said that historically, around 55 places per year were available to Irish and EU students across the two dental schools in Trinity College Dublin and University College Cork. This year, the RCSI launched a new Bachelor of Dental Surgery programme, adding 20 places for Irish and EU students - an increase of over one-third in national training capacity.
An additional 15 places for Irish and EU students are expected to be introduced in this programme over the coming years. Proposals are also being looked at that could further expand UCC's dentistry intake.
The statement added: "These developments are part of a broader Government strategy to grow the healthcare workforce, aligned with the Programme for Government commitment to increase higher education places in key areas such as dentistry."
The Department said the number of places offered to international students was determined by individual higher education institutions, in line with their autonomy. As international students do not apply through the CAO, it said their places were separate from those allocated to Irish and EU students.
"As such, the two cohorts are not in direct competition," it said.
